


He Stole All Hearts Away

by buoyantsaturn



Series: Mafia [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Blood and Violence, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mafia AU, Non-Graphic Violence, hinted at reychel for a few lines toward the end, like a lot of both of those, some torture in one bit but nothing very graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-02 21:59:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13327212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buoyantsaturn/pseuds/buoyantsaturn
Summary: Will reached up to wipe away a smear of blood on Nico’s cheek, momentarily forgetting about his own blood-covered hands and only making the smear worse. “That’s an awful lot of blood you’ve got on you,” Will commented. “None of it’s yours, right?”





	He Stole All Hearts Away

**Author's Note:**

> title is from first of the gang to die by morrissey bc i basically googled songs relating to the mob and thats what i found and its better than nothing
> 
> definitely read the first part first ok because theres a lot of bits throughout this that directly reference mob mentality
> 
> if u have a problem with violence then 1. what compelled u to choose this of all fics to read and 2. the "torture" scene is probably the most graphic of all of them but it's not very long, starts with """Nico hated it when his men would bring back captives""" and it'll be safe to read again at """This is your last chance. Tell me everything."""

Nico ground his knee into Will’s chest, one hand digging into Will’s shoulder while the other pressed the barrel of a gun into Will’s forehead.

“Answer the question,” Nico demanded, switching the gun’s safety off.

Will laughed quietly. “I thought I already did, Darlin’,” he said, smiling brightly at the man threatening to kill him.

Nico sighed impatiently. “Will, Sunshine, you are the light of my life, but I swear that if you don’t answer me in the next sixty seconds, I _will_ blow your brains out, do you hear me? I will ask you one more time, _have I gone soft?”_

Will hummed in thought, seeming completely unfazed by the very real possibility of his death. He reached up and slipped his fingers into Nico’s hair, muttering, “Hair’s pretty soft, but that’s nothing unusual.” He tugged gently on Nico’s head until the Italian was close enough that Will could connect their lips. “Lips are also pretty soft, but actually possibly more chapped than usual.”

He raised his other hand, sliding it down Nico’s back until his fingers slipped down over the curve of Nico’s ass, digging in. Will made a noise of approval, biting his lip as he did. “Very firm, definitely not soft at all. I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about, Darling, your ass is still in perfect condition.”

The door across the room opened and Frank - the only person in the house besides Hazel who would dare walk in without knocking - popped his head inside. “Hey, Nico, I--” He froze when his eyes landed on the scene before him, and he forced his expression to turn neutral. “Alright, I don’t need to know what kind of weird shit the two of you are into, but I have a few important matters I need to discuss, so please, finish this up before I get a chance to find some bleach to pour in my eyes.” He left, pulling the door shut behind him.

Nico tossed the gun toward the foot of the bed and removed his knee from Will’s sternum, straddling the blond’s abdomen instead.

“Oh, thank god,” Will said, drawing his hand away from Nico’s ass and pressing it gently against his chest. “I think you’ve bruised me.”

“You’re not afraid of me anymore,” Nico said, sounding disappointed. “You’re not afraid, and Frank’s not afraid either, which means I’ve gone soft.”

“You haven’t gone soft,” Will insisted, pulling Nico down to lay on top of him.

“Then why didn’t I kill you?” Nico asked, head dropping against Will’s shoulder, breath tickling Will’s neck as he spoke. “Six months ago I wouldn’t have hesitated to kill you. And the way Frank simply walked into the room: had it been anyone else and they would be dead on the floor right now.”

“Uh, well, you didn’t kill me because you love me,” Will answered simply. “Six months ago you didn’t love me yet. And, in a very different way, you also probably love Frank, which means you aren’t gonna kill him, either.”

Nico propped himself up on his elbows, staring down into Will’s eyes. “Why aren’t you scared of me anymore?”

Will laughed softly, reaching up to cup Nico’s cheek in his hand. “Because I’m in love with you, stupid. I trust you, I trust that you’re not gonna kill me in my sleep so I know that it’s safe to sleep in the same bed as you. I know you well enough by now to confidently say that you love me, kind of a lot, and you’re too loyal to the people you love to let anything bad happen to them.”

Nico’s expression softened, a gentle smile gracing his lips as he said, voice teasing, “How can you be so sure that I love you as much as you say?”

“You spent a week with my mother,” Will said. “Only someone who really, _truly_ loves me would make up elaborate lies about their fake identity to keep my mother from worrying about me.”

Nico sighed and rolled his eyes, though he was still smiling down at Will. “Alright, fine, you caught me. I’m in love with you. And you’re right: nobody in their right mind would keep up such an act for a whole week.”

“Guess you’re just not in your right mind,” Will said. “Too clouded by love, right?”

“Something like that.”

 

* * *

 

Will had been avoiding going to the tailor, always insisting that he had work to do at home whenever Nico brought it up. However, Nico caught him once when he knew that neither of them had anything important to do that day.

He’d never gotten a personally tailored suit before, always having gotten hand-me-downs from cousins or the cheapest department store suits his mother could find. He’d never expected to have to stand completely still for two solid hours while a man tacked fabric around his legs and arms. He didn’t appreciate the fact that, while he was standing for such an unbearable amount of time, Nico got to lounge around on a couch across the room sipping scotch, just visible in the corner of the mirror that Will stood in front of.

The tailor didn’t seem to speak any English at all, and spent most of the time chatting with Nico in Italian, though sometimes Nico would translate directions for Will so that the tailor could continue his work.

For about the last half hour, Will couldn’t see anything wrong with the suit, yet the tailor continued tacking and straightening portions of fabric until he finally stood up, said something to him in Italian, and left the room.

Nico set his glass down before crossing the room, stepping up behind Will and smoothing his hands across the light gray fabric. Nico met Will’s eyes in the mirror and said, “I can’t wait to get you home so I can take this suit off of you.”

Will felt a shiver travel up his spine at the thought.

“You’ll need to change out of that,” Nico told him, stepping away and turning his back. “Antonio still needs to sew everything together before we can leave. Two more hours at the most.”

Will groaned, carefully shedding his jacket as he turned to face his boyfriend. “Can’t we get lunch while we’re waiting? This is taking _way_ longer than I was expecting it to.”

Will kicked off his shoes and undid the button on his pants so that he could carefully shimmy out of them and hopefully not loosen any of the pins. Nico handed him the pair of sweatpants he’d worn to the tailor’s shop.

As Will pulled up his pants, Nico grabbed his chin and pulled him until they were nose-to-nose. “We can’t have you fatten up in the middle of a fitting,” Nico told him jokingly.

“C’mon, one quick meal isn’t gonna mess with anything,” Will said with a pout.

Nico slid his hands down Will’s chest, resting at his waist. “Hmm, fine. Just remember that unlike these running pants that you’re so fond of, trousers don’t have elastic in the waist.” He tucked his fingers under the band and snapped it back against Will’s skin.

Will smiled softly. “So...Chinese takeout?”

 

The suit was finished by the time they returned from getting lunch, and the last thing Will needed to do was try on the finished product. Antonio checked over the seams and the cuffs while Nico pulled a tie off a nearby rack and began tying it around Will’s neck.

Nico and Antonio exchanged a few words, and while Will had no clue what was being said, he could guess by the look in Nico’s eyes that he said something along the lines of, “He’ll wear it out.”

As Nico wrote Antonio a check, Will gathered up the t-shirt and sweats he’d worn there and met Nico by the door. He led Nico out to the car, knowing by the look in Nico’s eyes that it would be a miracle if Will was still fully clothed by the time they got home.

Nico climbed into his lap in the backseat as soon as the car started moving, and Will had only a second to send a mental apology to Jules-Albert before Nico’s tongue was in his mouth.

“So hot,” Nico told him, loosening the knot in Will’s tie. “And sexy. _Molto bello.”_ He kissed down Will’s neck as his fingers undid the buttons on Will’s shirt.

They lost track of time, making out like teenagers, and they arrived home in no time. Nico practically dove out of the car, dragging Will behind him, and never more regretted having a bedroom on the third floor.

He shoved the jacket off of Will’s shoulders and tossed it across their bedroom before he pressed Will back against the closed door. Will’s hands found Nico’s ass, sliding down to lift Nico by his thighs and carried him to the bed.

 

* * *

 

Nico hated when his men would bring back captives from recent raids, instead of getting the information they needed on the job. It was much easier to trace a dead body back to Nico when said body was killed in his basement and then disposed of somewhere else, and only so many of the cops working cases like these could be bought off.

Nico would also claim that he hated being the interrogator, but it was difficult to hide his enjoyment when he could make his enemy scream in agony.

He didn’t pay attention to the name of the man from Castellan’s gang that he’d already pulled three molars and seven fingernails from, but he didn’t care about who he was, just what information he could give up.

“I’ve told you everything I know, I _swear!”_ the man cried, though Nico knew there must’ve been something more. He turned his back on the man and scanned the tray of tools he had sitting against the wall. Nico took a pair of wire cutters in his hand and marched back toward the man, lining up to cut off the man’s pinkie. “No, no, please!” the man begged, and Nico pulled the wire cutters away. “Thank you! Please, let me go, I won’t tell anyone I was here, _please!”_

Nico didn’t respond, only moved the wire cutters until the blades were resting on either side of the man’s thumb. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing!” Nico squeezed the handle, just enough pressure to cut the skin of the man’s thumb. “Wait! It’s a month from tomorrow! It’s all going down a month from tomorrow! That’s all I know!” Nico applied more pressure until the man’s thumb sliced clean off, and he screamed.

Nico dropped the wire cutters back on to his tray and reached for the gun resting on the edge when he was interrupted.

“Sir?” One of Nico’s men, Sherman, said as he entered the room. “Phone call for you, it’s the doctor.”

“Hand it to me,” he said, and held the phone up to his ear once it had been placed in his hand. “Will. What is it? I’m a bit busy.”

“The guys just got back from a job,” Will told him, and Nico could hear a lot of shouting coming from the room he was in. “Most are fine, some are in pretty rough shape.”

“So what’s the problem?” Nico asked, growing impatient.

“Somebody snitched,” Will said. “We’re not exactly sure who, but Frank gave me a list of suspects. Do I fix ‘em or bleed ‘em dry?”

“Leave them to die,” Nico told him simply.

“Alright, makes my job easier,” Will said cheerily. “So I’ll see you for dinner tonight, right?”

“Of course,” Nico said, and hung up the phone. While there was no spoken _I love you_ from either of them at the end of the call, they could both hear the implication.

Nico handed the phone back to Sherman and reached for the gun. He fired a warning shot into the man’s left kneecap, then pressed the barrel of the gun against the man’s forehead. “This is your last chance. Tell me everything.”

 

Ellis and Sherman were given directions to dispose of the man’s body while Nico made his way upstairs. He passed by the room that Will had dubbed ‘the infirmary’ to find a few men inside barely hanging onto their lives, but no Will in sight, so Nico moved on.

He went to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water, and Will walked in to do the same not long after.

Will reached up to wipe away a smear of blood on Nico’s cheek, momentarily forgetting about his own blood-covered hands and only making the smear worse. “That’s an awful lot of blood you’ve got on you,” Will commented. “None of it’s yours, right?”

“No, and you?” Nico asked, and Will glanced down at his ruined shirt and jeans.

“All good, but I really should invest in a few pairs of scrubs so I don’t keep wrecking all of my clothes,” Will told him.

“How do you feel about taking a shower with me right now?” Nico asked, angling his head up and brushing his nose against Will’s.

“I’m actually kinda hungry, I was thinking about getting a snack.”

Nico rolled his eyes and pulled Will out of the kitchen. He laughed as he followed.

 

* * *

 

Will laid back on the bed wearing only his sweatpants low on his hips. He watched Nico dress in the now gently wrinkled suit he’d been wearing a few hours earlier, and hummed in appreciation.

“What’re you looking at?” Nico asked as he tied his tie, his waistcoat and belt still hanging undone.

“Something beautiful,” Will answered immediately.

Nico rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a sap.”

“Come over here.” Nico glanced up from where he was buckling his belt to see Will holding a hand out to him.

Nico took his hand and laced their fingers as he climbed on to the bed and straddled Will’s waist. “Did you need something?”

“I wanna talk to you,” Will said. He reached up at tugged at the knot in Nico’s tie.

“About what?”

“I feel like I should know more about you,” Will said, and Nico frowned in confusion. “I know that you’re Italian and that you love to cook and you refuse to wear anything besides a suit when you’re out in public. But I--” Will’s hand fell away from Nico’s tie and instead brushed against Nico’s cheek. “I’m not even sure I know how old you are.”

Nico turned his head to press a kiss to Will’s palm. “Guess. I’ll tell you how close you are.”

Will snorted. “I’m not gonna guess, it’s not like you know my age either. I’d like to see _you_ guess.”

Nico smiled, leaning forward and grabbing Will’s chin to angle his head up to meet Nico’s lips for a kiss. “Why, William Andrew Solace, why would I need to guess your age when I already know that you’re twenty-seven? I know that you were born in Nashville, Tennessee and that you attended the University of Tennessee before completing medical school at NYU.”

Will was in shock, momentarily a little bit terrified of how Nico found out so much about him. He shook himself out of it quickly, however, when he remembered just how many connections Nico must have had, and found himself more offended than anything. “That’s not fair,” he said with a pout.

“A lot of research had to go into stealing myself the perfect doctor, you know,” Nico said. “Had to make sure you were qualified for the position. It just happened to be a bonus that you’re pretty.”

“Aw, you think I’m pretty?” Will asked sarcastically. “Alright, if you already know so much about me, then it’s only fair that you tell me how old you are.”

Nico rolled his eyes with a grin before he leaned forward and whispered in Will’s ear: _“Diciannove.”_ He hopped off Will’s lap and made his way toward the door. “I’m going to make dinner, feel free to join me.”

Will blinked a few times, trying to get his mind to catch up to the present. “Nove...nine-- Nineteen? _Nineteen?”_ He practically fell out of the bed in his hurry to get to his feet and find a shirt before he ran out the door in the direction of the kitchen. There was no way that Nico was only nineteen, there couldn’t be, right?

“Please tell me you’re kidding,” Will demanded when he finally found Nico, who was pulling ingredients out of the pantry.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nico told him, though Will could see the tiniest of quirks at the corner of his lips.

Will groaned, but before he could start hitting his forehead against the nearest wall, he saw Hazel walk into the kitchen.

“Hazel!” Will exclaimed, and then winced when he saw the sleeping baby in her arms. “Uh, sorry,” he said, much quieter. “How old is he?”

“Who, Nico?” Hazel asked, confused, like there was anyone else in the room that Will could be referring to. “He’s twenty-four.”

“Thank you,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief, before he crossed the room and shoved at a laughing Nico’s shoulder. “You’re an asshole.”

Nico tried to smother his laughter in Will’s shirt. “You should’ve seen the look on your face!”

 

* * *

 

One of Percy’s men contacted Nico with information about Castellan’s next move, so Nico immediately called for a meeting of each of the mob heads to discuss their plans. When Nico went to the conference room to get their meeting started, he led Will down the hall behind him, much to Will’s confusion.

Will stepped through the door and every eye in the room landed on him. In that second Will thought he might be killed on the spot, but as soon as Nico introduced him as “Will, the doctor,” the rest of the room’s occupants smiled and greeted him. Will was almost dizzy from the sudden change in atmosphere and had to be prompted by a gentle push from Nico to move to an open seat - conveniently at Nico’s right hand. As soon as he was seated, his nervous energy made his leg start to bounce, only to stop when Nico set a hand on Will’s thigh, staying there even after Will’s leg ceased to move.

“So we finally get to meet the famous doctor that saved your life, huh, Neeks?” one of the women asked, leaning forward against the table and out from under a blond man’s arm. Nico raised a questioning eyebrow, and the woman said, “What? You think your men don’t talk to any of ours? Please, gossip like that spreads like wildfire.”

Nico rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to speak, but the blond man beat him to it. “Tell us about yourself, Will, how’d you manage to get yourself caught up with him?”

Nico groaned and slapped his free hand down onto the table. “We are meeting here to discuss important information regarding Castellan’s plan to--”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ve got plenty of time,” a dark-haired man said with a wave of his hand in Nico’s direction. “Now answer my man’s question, Will.”

Will felt the hostility in the room spike at the man’s tone of voice, but the second the blonde woman sitting at the man’s right elbowed him in the side, he smiled kindly at Will and the tension in the room melted away.

“He, uh--” Will glanced toward Nico for permission to share the information, but Nico was glaring down at the silver ring he was twisting around his finger with his thumb. “He had somebody kidnap me outside a grocery store and then threatened to kill me if I didn’t agree to work for him.”

The two men across the table started to laugh, and the latina woman sitting next to Nico punched him in the arm. “You couldn’t _ask_ like a normal person? Not every act of yours needs to be criminal, Neeks. You run your mob like it’s still your father’s.”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” Nico snapped, and the table shook as he slammed his fist down against it.

Will flinched, convinced that all hell was about to break loose and prepared to dive under the table in case of gunfire, but the opposite happened. They all began to laugh.

“That’s _literally_ our job, Neeks,” the blond man said. “We’re here to advise you, you idiot.”

“Uh, sorry, but, um,” Will hesitated when all eyes turned back to him - even Nico’s this time. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, or even who any of you are--”

“You didn’t tell him about us?” the blonde woman said to Nico. “You probably told him that we would all kill him if he ever spoke to us, right?” She rolled her eyes and turned back to Will. “I’m Annabeth, and this is my husband, Percy. We preside over the Upper East Side. Percy used to be the head of that branch, but since we got married we started sharing the responsibility.”

She gestured to the blond man sitting to Percy’s left. “That’s Jason and his wife Piper. Jason’s the head of the Lower Manhattan branch, and Piper’s the best of the best when it comes to gathering intel.” Annabeth gestured to the woman sitting to her right and continued, “This is Reyna, head of the branch in Washington Heights, and our connection to weapons manufacturers on the West coast.”

There was a short moment of silence while Annabeth raised an eyebrow at Nico, who was now lounging back in his chair and tapping his fingers on the inside of Will’s thigh.

“Oh, are you done now?” Nico asked, irritation clear in his voice. “Can we actually begin discussing what we came here for? Or was there more catching up to do?”

“Nope, we’re done,” Piper told him, and Nico straightened in his seat.

“Finally,” Nico said with a roll of his eyes. “Now tell me all of the information you have gathered on Castellan and his men in the past month.”

 

* * *

 

Will stared out the window in the backseat of the unmoving car, the only sound being the soft scratching of Piper’s nails running along a nail file.

“Do you normally go on raids?” Will asked, and Piper turned around to look at him from the front passenger’s seat.

“You mean, do I normally participate?” Piper questioned. “No, never, but I’ve had to wait in the car a few times during like this.”

“What’s the point of waiting in the car?” Will said with a frown. “If it’s a safety precaution, then wouldn’t we be safer in our own homes? Being home seems a lot safer than sitting in a car across the street from such a high concentration of guns.”

“You live with Nico and you think in _there_ is a high concentration of guns?” Piper asked with a snort. She tossed something into the backseat - a makeup bag of some kind - and then climbed between the seats until she was sitting beside Will. “We’re here because this is an all-called job, so nobody’s left back at the home bases to keep guard. What happens is that the heads appoint a few people to each home base to wait until everyone else has left, and then they tear the place apart to make it look like it’s been searched by somebody else. That way, if Castellan and his men somehow found out about our ambush and planned their own, then there wouldn’t be anything or anyone at the home bases for them to take.”

“So what’s the goal here, then?” Will inquired as he began picking at his nails.

“Ooh, no no, don’t do that,” Piper said, and tugged at one of Will’s hands. “And quit looking out the window, you’ll give us away.” She held out her bag to him and ordered, “Pick a color.”

“What?”

“Pick a color, and then I’ll tell you what’s most likely going on inside,” Piper explained, and shook the bag at him until Will took it from her. Will reached inside, picking at random, and selected a bottle of burgundy nail polish which he handed to Piper. _“Berry Blast,_ one of my favorites, good choice.” She set the bottle in her lap and grabbed her nail file, then started filing Will’s nails without hesitation.

“Now, it’s been about twenty minutes since we got here, which means that Castellan’s men are all perfectly aware of our presence,” Piper explained. _“Our_ meaning our mafia, not necessarily _us._ They shouldn’t have any reason - or the opportunity, really - to notice us sitting here, or the dozen other cars around the block.

“I’d say that at least the first floor has been secured by now, maybe the second, but they’ll keep working their way up to the fourth where they’re expecting Castellan himself will be.”

“They’re going _after him?”_ Will asked, holding out his right hand after Piper had finished filing the nails on his left. “I thought this might just be to take out his men, not _him.”_

“Oh, no, Nico reserves all-calls for full takedowns,” Piper told him. “So, anyway, Reyna’s covering the second floor - assuming that they’ve cleared it - and Percy’s got the first. Annabeth’s guarding the main door from the inside to make sure none of Castellan’s men make it outside.” She set down the nail file and moved on to carefully painting Will’s nails. “Jason’s in charge of clearing the third floor to make sure Nico makes it up to the fourth so that he can take down Castellan himself, but of course, the other heads are each on different floors in case they get the chance to claim the kill themselves. It’s quite the honor to kill another mob head, you know.”

“He’s going after Castellan by himself?” Will asked softly, feeling as though his chest was wrapped in elastic - it was getting harder and harder to breathe with each passing second. “What if he gets shot? I’m his doctor, shouldn’t I be in there with him?”

Piper paused in her painting and raised an eyebrow at Will. “Are you kidding? First off, he’s been shot a ton of times and always makes it out fine. Second, you’re willing to walk through open fire just to save your boss? You know, if he dies then you can go back to your normal life. I know we were joking around in that meeting last week, but you were literally _kidnapped_ by him. You don’t _actually_ _want_ to be a part of this, do you?”

“It’s not--” Will huffed and rubbed at his face with his unpainted hand before Piper pulled it down and moved on to painting those nails. “I want to help people. _This_ isn’t what I had in mind, but he’s… He’s not my _boss,_ Piper. I-- He’s just not allowed to die, okay?”

“Aw, that’s so cute, you’ve got a crush!” Piper exclaimed. “Or some kind of torture kink, which is a lot less cute, but whatever. Besides, like I said, he’s gonna be fine. Definitely a little banged up when he gets out of there, but overall okay. Maybe he’ll even let you take care of him, and you can imagine yourself a little doctor-and-patient fetish scene--”

“Piper, no!” Will shouted. “I don’t wanna talk about that, how would you feel if I talked about you and Jason like that?”

Piper snorted. “Well, Jason and I are married, so I think that’s a bit different than your little crush.”

Will rolled his eyes. “It’s _not a crush--”_

“There! All done,” Piper said as she twisted the cap back on to the bottle of nail polish and dropped it back in her bag. “What do you think?”

“Well, I didn’t know what to expect from this night, but this is probably one of the better things that’ll come out of it, if I have to take a guess.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment,” Piper told him. “Now, about that crush you have--”

Will watched on Piper’s face as her smile slowly faded away, her widening eyes drifting over his shoulder to look at something through the window behind him.

“I don’t think that was part of the plan,” Piper whispered, and Will’s head whipped around to stare at what was happening on the front steps of the building across the street.

He could see Annabeth on the ground outside the door, her hands coated with red and pressing against her abdomen. He saw a beaten up Jason being dragged outside by the collar of his shirt, led by a different blond man with a jagged scar across half of his face. The man’s other hand held a gun, which was pointed at the back of Nico’s head, the mafia boss’s hands raised in surrender.

Castellan was shouting something, but Will couldn’t hear him. If he had to take a guess, though, he would think it was something like _come out, come out, wherever you are._

Castellan threw Jason aside, and he curled up on the ground. In his head, Will was chanting _do something, Jason. Shoot him, Jason,_ but the blond didn’t move. Castellan used his other hand to grab the front of Nico’s shirt, spinning Nico around and holding the barrel of his gun to Nico’s forehead.

“He’s going to kill him,” Will breathed. “I need to get out there, I have to stop him!” He grabbed for the handle of the door, yanking it a few times before he realized it was locked, and reached to unlock it before Piper pulled him back.

“You can’t interfere, Will,” she told him, shouting over him. He hadn’t realized that he was practically yelling, _pleading_ to be let go, begging to go save the man he loved.

“He’s gonna be shot in the head, he’s going to die instantly, I won’t be able to save him,” Will said. “I have to get out there, he can’t get shot, he can’t be killed, I _love him,_ he _can’t die!”_ By now, there were tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Calm down, Will,” Piper said, her arms wrapped around him from behind to hold him back, whispering relaxingly in his ear. “Everything will work out fine. Just relax, he’ll make it through.”

 

As the cool metal of the barrel pressed against Nico’s forehead, he could only think, why did this have to happen outside? Why couldn’t they have stayed where they were on the second floor, where no one would see? But of course, Castellan would’ve known that Nico would bring everyone with him, that even those who weren’t a direct part of the fight would be there to watch in the getaway cars.

He wasn’t paying attention to a word that Castellan was saying - Jason probably was, and hopefully he would live through this to either use Castellan’s words against him later, or he would be able to kill Castellan as soon as Nico was dead.

Either way, Nico had accepted his death as soon as he saw the gun in Castellan’s hand, and wished he would just pull the trigger already. Nico could practically hear Will crying out from where he stood, and the guilt was eating away at him already. Couldn’t he just die already so that guilty feeling would go away?

His eyes flickered away from the ugly scar he’d carved into Castellan’s face a couple years back to a flash of light on a rooftop nearby. It looked like a signal light almost, though Nico couldn’t tell if the seemingly random flashes were supposed to be some kind of code or not. He had no way of knowing whether that signal was for him or someone else, anyway.

Nico took a slow, deep breath, and heard Castellan cock his gun, so Nico let his eyes fall shut. The barrel pressed more firmly into his head for a moment, and he could hear the sound of a gun firing and the feeling went away. He wondered for half a second if a direct shot to the head could really be so painless, when he realized that a dead man couldn’t have had that thought.

His eyes fluttered open, and he saw a familiar bulky figure standing on the rooftop in front of him. The figure offered a quick salute, and vanished into the darkness.

Nico helped Jason to his feet and half-carried him toward the car, dumping him in the passenger’s seat so that Nico could climb in the back where he knew Will would be. Piper had claimed the driver’s seat and the car was moving as soon as Nico’s door had closed behind him.

“What now?” Will croaked, and Nico noticed that he was facing pointedly toward the window, desperately avoiding even the slightest of glances toward Nico.

“Now we go home,” Piper told him when it appeared that neither of the heads were going to answer. “And we hope as many of our men as possible follow us back.”

A few moments passed in silence, and Nico watched a few times as Will rubbed furiously at his face.

Will cleared his throat and finally looked toward Nico, his eyes puffy and red. Nico felt like his heart was being crushed in a vice. “You’re okay?” he asked softly, setting one of his hands on the seat in between them.

“I’m okay,” Nico promised.

“All that blood?”

Nico glanced down to see his white button-down splattered with red. “Not mine, I don’t think,” he answered.

“Good.” Will said, and he turned back toward the window.

Nico set his hand down next to Will's, their pinkies overlapping. It was the only comfort he could offer Will for now, but he hoped it would be enough until they could get back home.

 

A few of Percy’s men arrived at Nico’s house before they did, and straightened up a few rooms on the main floor of the house. Nico and Will were able to drag Jason into the house and lower him onto the couch in the first sitting room, where Will immediately started cleaning and stitching the worst of Jason’s wounds.

By the time Will could pry his eyes away from Jason’s injuries, the room was flooded with people - some fatally injured, some in slight pain, and some completely unharmed. Will was prioritizing every person he saw in his head, thinking up a list of who to fix first, but he needed to consult with Nico first.

The problem was that he couldn’t find Nico. He could easily talk with the other heads - aside from Jason, of course, who was now passed out on the couch with Piper watching over him - to see who deserved his attention, but Will had no idea if that’s how the other heads ran their branches or not. Hadn’t Reyna said, so long ago it seemed, that Nico ran his mob in an old-fashioned manner?

Will scanned the room from where he stood, but he couldn’t quite see over everyone’s heads, so he stepped onto the coffee table and tried again. He found Percy and Annabeth sharing an armchair and tending to each other’s wounds, so he made his way over to them.

“Do you need my help at all?” Will asked when he approached them.

“We’re fine, thank you,” Annabeth told him, tying off a bandage around Percy’s arm.

“I called our doctor on the way over here,” Percy said. “She should be here soon, so you’ll have some help.”

“Okay, great,” Will said. “Uh, you haven’t seen Nico around anywhere, have you?”

Annabeth opened her mouth to answer, but a shout from across the room cut her off.

 _“Zhang!”_ Nico yelled, and the people in the room parted to form a path for Nico to reach the door where Frank stood. He stormed across the room and yanked on the front of Frank’s black shirt, though Frank didn’t so much as lean forward with the tug. “What the hell is the matter with you? Are you incapable of following a simple order? Explain yourself!”

“I had a bad feeling,” Frank told him. “The three of us went to my grandmother’s in Vancouver, but as soon as I was sure that Hazel would be fine without me, I came back. And it’s a good thing I did, alright? I won’t apologize for that.”

Nico had to stand on his tiptoes to slap Frank across the face. “Do you think you get a free pass because you married my sister? Because you’re the father of my niece? You follow my orders, and you do not stray from those orders, do you understand me?”

Frank frowned, but responded, “Yes, sir.”

Nico took half a step back and held out his hand. “Good. In that case, thank you, Frank. I will never forget what you did for me tonight, and I will do everything I can to repay you.”

They shook hands, and Frank was ordered to return to Vancouver for the rest of the week at the least, and Nico turned to face the rest of the silenced room. “What the hell are all of you looking at?” he demanded, and everyone returned to what they had been doing before the outburst.

Nico made his way toward Will, who met him halfway in the middle of the room. “Are you alright?” Will asked, one hand reaching out to wipe away a smear of blood on Nico’s cheek, but stopping himself when he remembered his place.

“I’m fine,” Nico told him. “There are too many others far more injured that need your attention.”

Will wanted to argue that Nico deserved his attention the most, that Nico was the only one he _wanted_ to give his full attention to, but he couldn’t do that in front of so many people. “Okay. Who can I fix?”

“Everyone you can,” Nico said, and it was the first time that Nico had responded in such a way. “They all contributed to Castellan’s destruction, and anyone that didn’t deserve to be saved was left on the scene.”

Ah, Will thought, that was more like it.

“I’ll meet you upstairs when I’m done?” Will suggested in a whisper, wanting nothing more than to drag Nico to their room right then and wrap him up in his arms for hours.

“Of course,” Nico said, the slightest of smiles quirking up the corner of his lips. He watched Will turn and walk away, keeping his eyes on the blond until Will knelt down beside one of Jason’s men and started cleaning his wounds.

Nico looked away, forcing himself to leave the room until he found Reyna sitting on the floor in the hall, slumped against the wall and tightening her belt around her own leg.

He rushed over, crouching at Reyna’s side, spying a furiously bleeding gunshot wound just above her knee. “Are you alright? Should I bring Will?”

“I’m fine,” she panted. “I’ve lasted this long without a doctor of my own. I just don’t have any supplies. Do you have a needle and thread? And something I can use as a bandage?”

“I don’t, but I believe that Will does,” Nico answered. He rose to his feet and turned to head back the way he came, when he saw the front door swing open.

He recognized the girl in the doorway as Percy’s doctor, a redhead named Rachel who was carrying a very large first aid kit.

“Rachel,” Nico called down the hall, and the doctor hurried toward him. “Reyna needs stitches and bandages, help her and then move on to help those in the sitting room.”

Rachel nodded in understanding and rushed to Reyna’s side to get to work. Nico could see that Reyna’s face had grow very slightly pink, though he suspected it might’ve been more so if not for the blood loss, and her hand had slipped on her substitute tourniquet, which she frantically retightened once she noticed.

Nico snorted at Reyna’s reaction, and she shot him a glare before returning her attention to the redhead in front of her.

“When you’re done, if you’re able to make it up the stairs, there are plenty of guest rooms that you’re welcome to stay in tonight,” Nico said. “That invitation is extended to you as well, Rachel.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, and smiled up at him before turning back to Reyna’s leg, and Nico walked back into the sitting room. He made his way to Piper and Jason, and let Piper know that they were welcome to move to a guest room, given that Jason regained consciousness sometime soon. He extended this invitation to Percy and Annabeth as well, and continued to inform the rest of his mafia that they were welcome to stay if they chose.

Once he was sure that he’d offered everyone a place to stay, he made his way up the stairs to his own room, still empty as Will hadn’t yet finished fixing up the injuries on the main floor.

Nico kicked off his shoes and removed his gun holsters, moving slowly so as to kill time, and was just about to walk into the bathroom when he heard the door creak open. Will walked in, running a hand through his hair and seeming unaware of the blood still coating his fingers as he did so. The door clicked shut behind him and he finally looked up to find Nico watching him.

“Will,” Nico said softly, taking a step forward, one hand extended out to him.

Suddenly Will was right there in front of him, eyes brimming with tears, and then his lips were pressing against Nico’s, a bit more forcefully than was comfortable. He pulled back after a moment, and before Nico could say a single word, Will started sobbing into his shoulder.

“I thought--” he cried, choking on his sobs, “I thought you were dead. I thought I lost you.” His arms wound around Nico’s waist, hands twisting in the soft fabric of Nico’s waistcoat. “I saw the gun, and I heard the gunshot, and I thought--”

“I’m so sorry,” Nico whispered, one hand weaving into Will’s hair. “I’m so sorry, Sunshine.”

Will pulled back and held his forehead against Nico’s. “I love you,” Will told him. “I love you, and I can’t-- I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t,” Nico promised. “I love you, no one could ever take me away from you.” He pressed his lips softly to Will’s before he started to pull himself away, but Will’s arms tightened around him. “I’m not going anywhere,” Nico told him gently. He reached behind himself and pried Will’s fingers from his clothes, then pulled him toward the bathroom. “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”

Will sat down on the closed lid of the toilet while Nico found a washcloth and ran it under the faucet. He knelt down in front of Will and wiped the blood from Will’s hands and forearms, before setting the washcloth aside and pulling off Will’s blood-soaked shirt.

“Why did you yell at Frank?” Will asked, his voice hoarse from crying.

Nico wiped away the smudges on Will’s cheeks. “I told him to be in another country during the raid, but he came back and--” He frowned, meeting Will’s eyes as he asked, “What’s the word for a long-range gunman?”

“A sniper?” Will offered after a short hesitation.

“Yes, thank you. Frank was snipering and took out Castellan at the last second,” Nico explained, but seemed unsure of himself. “That didn’t sound right, did it?”

“It didn’t, but I know what you mean,” Will said with a soft smile. Nico moved on to the smears of blood leading into Will’s hair. “You’re going to repay Frank somehow, right? You kinda have to.”

“I will,” Nico said. “I’m not sure how, yet.” He wiped away the rest of the blood in Will’s hair, and pressed a kiss to Will’s forehead. “Done. Go change and I’ll meet you there in a minute, alright?”

“You’re not hurt at all, are you?” Will asked.

“I’m fine, nothing more than bruises,” Nico told him.

Will nodded once and left the room, going to change out of his jeans and into a pair of pajama pants before crawling into bed.

Nico exited the bathroom a moment later wearing nothing but his boxers, his skin freshly wiped clean of any blood. He stepped toward the dresser filled with Will’s clothes and took out a t-shirt, pulling it on over his head. Nico got into bed beside Will and turned off the lamp on his nightstand before curling up against Will’s chest.

“Nico,” Will whispered, “I think I’m too wired to sleep.”

Nico pulled himself back until he could see Will’s face in the dark, and he ran a hand down Will’s chest. “Do you need my help to relax?” His hand trailed down to stop at the waistband of Will’s pajama pants.

Will hummed and wrapped an arm around Nico’s waist, dragging him close and whispering in his ear, “I think I just wanna talk.”

“Talk? It's three-thirty in the morning. What do we have to talk about?”

“Anything,” Will said immediately, and after a moment said, “Tell me about your dad.”

Nico pulled himself back abruptly. “What? Why?”

“I don’t know anything about your family, except for Hazel,” Will explained. “And Reyna started talking about your dad at the meeting last week. I’m just...curious, I guess.”

Nico didn’t respond for so long that Will was about to take his words back, but then Nico sighed and said, “Alright.” He tucked himself up against Will’s chest again and waited another moment before he spoke again, giving himself time to gather his thoughts.

“My parents met in Italia before my father took control of the mafia,” Nico began. “He hadn’t anticipated becoming Capo, and settled down with my mother to have my older sister and I. However, his father, the Capo at the time, was killed during a raid, and soon after my uncles were also killed, meaning that my father was forced to take control.

“My mother tried to stay out of his business, but that’s very difficult to do when you’re married to the head of the mafia. My father’s enemies discovered that she was a weakness of his, and had her kidnapped and killed. My father ran away like a coward and rebuilt the mafia here in New York.

“He started to...deteriorate, mentally. He kidnapped a woman and forced her to marry him. She tried to overthrow him as Capo, and they shot each other to death when I was sixteen. I have been in charge of the mafia since.”

“Nico,” Will breathed, his arms tightening around him. “I’m so sorry, that sounds terrible.”

“It’s what had to happen,” Nico said softly, sounding drained. “If not for all of that, I wouldn’t have found you.”

Will’s breath hitched in surprise, and he pulled himself back so that he could see Nico’s face. _“Babe,_ that was the _cheesiest_ thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Nico snaked his arms out from in between them and framed Will’s face in his hands. “Will, I want you to listen to me very closely.” In the moonlight streaming into their room, Will could see tears forming in Nico’s eyes. “I love you more than I have ever loved another person. I’m sorry for having you kidnapped, I never should have brought you here against your will. And I’m sorry for ever leaving you so unguarded that you could be taken away from me. I promise you that that will _never_ happen again. I have never been so terrified as I was on the night you were taken from me, and I swear on my _life_ that you will never see danger again as long as I am here to protect you.”

“I love you so much,” Will whispered, and pulled Nico closer. “You’re all that I need.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading and please let me know if there are any other tags that i should add as content warnings!!


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